


wildflower melodies

by Junkyard_Rose



Series: mlm/wlw solidarity: the series [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, set vaguely in the future when Everything Is Fine, smelly man collects flowers and wingmans for his lesbian friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 04:09:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15162299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Junkyard_Rose/pseuds/Junkyard_Rose
Summary: Mollymauk collects beads and ribbons, shiny charms, glossy feathers. It takes Caleb a while to notice that the beads appear in Yasha’s hair in the days after she returns from wherever she goes, the feathers get tucked into her book, the ribbons are wound around her wrists, carefully, securely knotted.Caleb should pay her back for the gift she gave him, he thinks.





	wildflower melodies

**Author's Note:**

> yooo i said i'd write a sequel n its been sitting on my computer 3/4 finished for two weeks. life, yaknow. anyway.

Mollymauk collects beads and ribbons, shiny charms, glossy feathers. Cheap, worthless things, bright and useless. It takes Caleb a while to notice that the beads appear in Yasha’s hair in the days after she returns from wherever she goes, the feathers get tucked into her book, the ribbons are wound around her wrists, carefully, securely knotted.

Caleb should pay her back for the gift she gave him, he thinks. It’s still tucked away in a pocket. It’s become a part of his routine, finding time to comb his hair, shave his face every few days. It’s funny, the difference it makes in his mood, such a little thing.

 

* * *

 

In the years he spent living in the woods he never thought much about the flora. The majority of the flowers he encountered could not be eaten, so he ignored them. The ones that could be eaten – dandelion, chickweed, wild fennel – aren’t pretty plants by any means, and so he is not used to looking for pretty things hidden among the undergrowth.

Yasha is gone, the first time a flash of yellow-cream amongst the weeds catches his eye. Three days past a thunderstorm had rolled over the hills and come down on their camp, and in the morning her bedroll was empty. Caleb is walking by the cart, enjoying the mud under his feet.

It’s the easiest thing in the world to bend down and pluck the flash of cream out of the grass. They’re not familiar flowers to his eyes but raising them to his nose nearly knocks him off his feet, a wave of memory so strong he almost floats away –

His mother had worn jonquil perfume, he thinks, a cloudy little bottle on her vanity table, the smell of being wrapped up in a hug, the way she’d smiled –

“Caleb,” Mollymauk has been walking too, a little behind Caleb. Now he’s standing at Caleb’s elbow, not touching, close enough for Caleb to feel his warmth. “You alright in there?”

“Ja,” Caleb says, tucks the flowers away. He’s got a little jar, he thinks, that used to hold a healing potion. Filled with water it would serve as a vase for long enough. “Just, ah, memories.”

Yasha comes back the day after next; she’s sitting quietly at a table in the desolate little inn they’ve spent the night in, eating porridge, when they make their way downstairs for breakfast. They’ve all gotten more used to the way she comes and goes, but still –

“ _Yasha!_ ” Jester gasps out, smiling big, full of questions. Caleb doesn’t get a chance to give her the jonquils for another hour. They’ve finished breakfast, are making plans for the day over the table, littered with plates and empty tankards. There’s something about a monster to fight, later, but for now they’re heading different ways – Jester and Molly to hunt down fresh pastries, Fjord and Beau to stock up on health potions, Nott and himself book shopping.

“Do you wanna join us on the donut run?” Molly asks Yasha across the table, as they’re collecting their things to rise.

She takes a moment, thinks about it. “I was wanting to get something to read, actually.”

Caleb says, “Come with us,” immediately, and, “I just have to grab something from my room, it will only take a minute.”

Nott disappears halfway to the bookshop, darting off after a grumpy noble. Caleb finishes the little bundle of jonquils out, and hands them out to her.

“I found these,” he says. “You know, for your book.”

“Oh,” Yasha says, takes them, touches a yellow-cream petal, bends forward to smell a tiny flower, “ _Oh_. Caleb. Thank you,” quiet, sincere, and she’s already pulling her book out, turning through the pages to find a spot to tuck them away. They’re a little dented from his pocket, he thinks regretfully, maybe a little more wilted than they were two days ago, but she doesn’t seem to mind.

Yasha is very careful with her book, he notices, not for the first time. Her big hands card though the pages, careful not to disturb any of the pressed flowers tucked away inside, until she finds a place for the jonquils. She ducks her head to sniff them again, once more, and then closes the book, tucks it gently away.

Caleb says, “Uh, the bookshop’s this way,” and keeps walking.

 

* * *

 

“By the way, are you hitting on my girl?” Mollymauk asks.

Caleb scrambles backwards away from the swing of a huge claw and gasps out, “ _What_?”

“She said you gave her flowers,” Mollymauk shrugs as an Eldritch Blast slams into the beast; it roars, hurt and furious.

“I – nein, no, I am definitely not doing that,” Caleb keeps scrambling back, reaches for his diamond as Mollymauk activates one of his scimitars. This is neither the time nor place for this, he thinks wildly, as Beauregard takes a running leap to _crack_ her staff across the beast’s back.

“Oh, that’s good,” Mollymauk says, and charges at the monster.

 

* * *

 

Weeks later, Caleb finds a garden of blossoming daisy bushes in the town square of a little village, so bursting with cheerful little flowers that it seems almost a kindness to relieve the plants of a few white and rosy pink blooms. There’s a handful of peasant children gathered around the bush making daisy chain, draping themselves with petals. They take little notice of him as he plucks a handful of daisies, arranges them into a little bouquet as he walks back to where Beauregard is failing to haggle with a shopkeeper.

“You should give these to Yasha,” he says to her abruptly as they’re walking back to their inn, thrusting the little bouquet in her direction. Beauregard takes it, more out of reflex than anything, and then frowns down at the daisies.

“Uh,” she says, and, “Why?”

“For her book,” Caleb says, “Do you not want to?”

Beauregard makes a face. “Yeah,” she says, “yeah, okay, I do. But I’m telling her they’re from you.”

“That’s fair enough,” he agrees, and speeds up, feeling awkward.

Caleb doesn’t see Beauregard hand over the flowers but he notices, later, a single pink daisy tucked into one of Yasha’s little braids, a matching blush on her cheeks.


End file.
